Read the extract given below and answer the question that follows:

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood.

What did the crow and the hemlock symbolise ?

How does Frost present nature in this poem? The following questions may help you to think of an answer.

(i) What are the birds that are usually named in poems? Do you think a crow is often mentioned in poems? What images come to your mind when you think of a crow?

(ii) Again, what is “a hemlock tree”? Why doesn’t the poet write about a more ‘beautiful’ tree such as a maple, or an oak, or a pine?

(iii) What do the ‘crow’ and ‘hemlock’ represent − joy or sorrow? What does the dust of snow that the crow shakes off a hemlock tree stand for?